Texas de Brazil – Brazilian BBQ in Carlsbad, CA

Recently Jake and I celebrated our 12th dating anniversary! Thanks to an invite from Texas de Brazil, we were able to celebrate our anniversary in style! It’s not too often that we get to pig out on endless, delicious meats!

Texas de Brazil is a new Brazilian BBQ restaurant in San Diego County – up in Carlsbad, specifically.

Texas de Brazil is actually located inside of a mall at The Shoppes at Carlsbad Mall in Carlsbad (off the 78). We wandered through the mall to find that the entrance was actually outdoors. It’s next to the Cheesecake Factory, Dave & Busters, and the 24 Hour Fitness.

Here’s a peak at the interior.

And this is the massive salad bar! 

Let’s start at one corner of the salad bar and make our way around it, shall we?

Tomato slices and green beans.

Some sauces you might want to go with the meats here at Texas de Brazil. They have a few lamb dishes, hence the mint jelly!

Sushi.

Salmon, shrimp, and asparagus.

Pickle-free potato salad.

The pineapple carpaccio is a very thin slice of sweet pineapple.

Couscous salad and cured meats.

Meats and cheeses.

I call this section “Things That Are Brined”. 

Cherry tomatoes!

Regular salad.

Fresh and creamy mozzarella.

Hello giant mound of goat cheese. 

The beets bring us full circle around the cold salad bar. 

And now for some hot items, like scalloped potatoes. 

And a coconut fish stew.

Mushrooms and black beans.

Plus lobster bisque.

I got a little variety plate with some couscous salad, a tomato slice, some green beans (topped with almonds), prosciutto, shrimp, mozzarella ball, potato salad, scalloped potatoes, and pineapple carpaccio. The veggies were especially nice to eat in between bites of meat to help break up the richness of the meats to come!  

I also tried a little of the lobster bisque. I thought it was okay. It had a lobster-ish essence to it but it was just alright. 

Our waiter brought us a basket of fresh and warm Brazilian cheese bread which we both loved. These little puffs have a slightly crunchy exterior but are chewy when you bite into them. Think of mochi, but not nearly as chewy, and with a cheesy flavor.  We had at least two baskets of this yummy bread.

This is another hot appetizer that your waiter will bring to your table: sweet fried bananas. They are sweet and have a bit of cinnamon sugar on them. 

Freshly made garlic mashed potatoes are also brought to your table. This was a great creamy side dish to eat with the meats!

I didn’t take a photo of it, but you have a little card on your table for each person with a green side, and a red side. The red side means “stop” or no meats, whereas the green side means that all of the guys with BBQ’ed meats will stop to offer you a bite.

We flipped our cards to green and got started!

The first meat we tried at Texas de Brazil was the Picanha, or Top Sirloin. The servers will slice off a piece of meat for you, and you have to grab it with a pair of tongs.

It was a perfect medium rare. You can ask for different meat temperatures as well if medium rare isn’t your thing (but it should be). This was a great kick off as the BBQ’d sirloin was well seasoned, tender, juicy, and delicious. This is their most popular cut and it was offered to us several times during our visit but we only tried it once since we wanted to make sure to try as much as possible.

The next meat to come around were these Chicken Parmesan drumettes. I wasn’t as excited about these since I eat chicken all the time at home, I’d rather have more beef! These were just okay to me. Jake liked them.

Next skewered meat was the Garlic Picanha or Garlic Sirloin. 

You can see the bits of garlic cooked into the crust of the meat! Jake and I have traditionally adored this meat and it was no exception at Texas de Brazil. The crust was outrageously good with all of the yummy garlic in it and the meat was a perfect medium rare. Love! 

This crazy long looking piece of meat is the flank steak!

A nice cut of beef. 

I kind of skipped over that last one a bit because this one was my favorite of the meal: the Ribeye! 

I got an excellent slice of the supremely juicy and well seasoned ribeye. It was melt in your mouth tender and I am pretty sure I did a small dance of joy while eating this succulent piece of beef. This one was like, Jake’s 4th favorite, but at least it also made his Top 5?? 

And here’s a blurry photo of Jake’s favorite item of the meal: the Brazilian Sausage!

This was very similar in texture and flavor to a polish sausage. Not overcooked or dried out, great bit of flavor, and the bite of the sausage has a nice snap to it that we both really enjoyed. This was my #3!

Bacon wrapped chicken was next on the list. I honestly don’t recall this one very well but I did note that this was Jake’s #3 dish on the list. Bacon makes things better.

I believe at this point we had been offered a few of the same meats and the servers started to ask us what we wanted to try. I requested lamb and this lovely hunk of spiced leg of lamb came out. It was seasoned with a bit more spices and flavoring than the other meats we had tried – a bit more Mediterranean. It was a nice contrast in flavor than the other meats we had already tried. I say “we”, but Jake actually didn’t have any lamb since he’s not a fan. 

Here’s some blurry parmesan crusted pork loin. I had a very tender and juicy piece, but Jake commented that the piece he got was dried out. This one can be hit or miss depending on where the cut is.

The next one was the Filet Mignon. Sadly this was my least favorite cut of meat as the piece I got was well done and incredibly dry. I think I just had a bad piece though. 

Those also have hot grilled shrimp! Yum! 

Lamb sirloin!

Really nice medium rare, tender, and didn’t have any gamey flavor to it at all. I was getting really full at this point and only taking small bites of things. They also have lamb chops but those never came around and I was too full to ask for any more.

The last item we tried at Texas de Brazil (which I requested), were the beef ribs. They bring out this giant plate of beef ribs on the bone and they slice off a piece for you.

Jake thought this was too rich and fatty, but I think it’s because it was the last thing we tried after we were already stuffed full of meat. I like the flavor of it but having it at the end did make it over the top rich. Try and eat this earlier in your meal and request it.

This was my “leftovers” plate at the end of all of the meats I didn’t eat. I felt over the top full… and yet, we couldn’t turn away dessert (duh).

If you have room at the end of your meal, your waiter will bring on by the “Fake Desserts Tray”. At least, that’s what I call it. They point out each item so you can see what it looks like.

We were crazy and got three desserts. Mostly because I couldn’t decide between two of them.

Coconut Chess Pie. Damn I’m glad we got this one because it was my favorite of the three. It is a custard pie with a creamy filling and the top is a bit crunchy. The addition of the coconuts was a nice touch that gave this more of a tropical feel. It has a standard crunchy pastry crust on the bottom and I adored the flavor, texture, and crunch of this creamy pie. 

Jake wanted to try the Key Lime Pie which had a sour cream topping on it. It was a nice pie and I flip flopped between this one and the coconut chess pie a lot.

The item I also couldn’t resist was the cheesecake, but this wasn’t my favorite version. There’s a bit of a chocolate layer on the bottom with a caramel turtle thing going on at the top. I thought it was too many different flavors in one dessert, but then again I seem to only like plain cheesecake. I’m probably a weirdo. But that’s okay.

The price for dinner or weekend lunch at Texas de Brazil is $47.99. The full menu is served at both times, with lunch only offered on the weekends. Salad bar only is $29.99. Prices do not include alcohol, featured items, desserts, beverages, tax or gratuity. They also have a happy hour menu for drinks and a bar menu if you don’t feel like having the full experience.

All in all Jake and I really loved our visit to Texas de Brazil. We thought the meats overall were excellently prepared and we were pleasantly surprised at how well seasoned the meats were. I lovely the variety of the salad bar and there are so many options here to really please a variety of palates. 

Thanks to Texas de Brazil for the invitation to help us kick off our anniversary celebration!

Texas de Brazil 
2525 El Camino Real
Carlsbad, CA 92008

Disclaimer: I was invited to dine on behalf of the restaurant. Our meal and desserts were complimentary. I was not further compensated for this post and all opinions stated here are my own.